German Apple Cake with Brown Sugar Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

Thanks for sharing!

Moist and flavorful German apple cake is full of fresh apples and comes together quickly. The cinnamon brown sugar cream cheese frosting takes it to the next level!

A simple but delicious German apple cake is always a hit, especially when topped with cream cheese frosting. I gave mine a cinnamon brown sugar cream cheese frosting twist that knocked it right on out of the park!

German apple cakes have always been a hit in my eyes. They would occasionally make an appearance at a fall get together and the combination of flavorful cake and cream cheese frosting is just perfect.

I love how easily the cake batter comes together. There is nothing fancy or complicated about it.

The hardest part is prepping the apples and it’s worth every ounce of effort. The resulting cake is full of soft apple chunks.

There is a perfect balance of sweet and spice. There isn’t so much cinnamon that you can’t taste the apples, just enough to tickle your taste buds.

Then there’s the texture. It’s a denser cake, but in a good way. All of those apples help make it that way.

It almost reminds me of a cross between a blondie and the cake mix box texture you might be used to. The edges are slightly crispy, it forms a slightly crackly crust and the inside is moist and delicious.

Just thinking of it makes me want to run to the kitchen and bake another! I would hear no complaints about it either.

Honestly you could probably stop there and serve it warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and have an out of this world experience. But in my world cakes need frosting!

That’s part of what I loved about these cakes growing up, the cream cheese frosting! Its the creamy and slightly tangy topping that brings it together.

Plus that layer of cream cheese frosting almost makes it the apple version of everyone’s favorite, pumpkin bars!

Now I could have left well enough alone and made the classic cream cheese frosting we all know and love. But that’s not really my style, now is it?

After a few minutes of staring at my pantry, an idea struck. Why not warm up the cream cheese frosting with brown sugar?

Why not, indeed! So of course I did.

And while we are warming things up, why not some cinnamon as well? I’m sure your experience with me thus far and the recipe title told you where I fell on that as well. 😉

And I’m glad I did. The results were still the creamy goodness with slight tang you’d expect from cream cheese frosting, but with a little something more.

As I do with most cakes, I brought it to family dinner at my parents’ house. Despite a large dinner, the cake basically disappeared. Even my husband went crazy over it.

He was disappointed when he learned it was gone before he got a second piece. He should know by now he has to act fast for that sort of thing.

Little Dude and I polished off what was left the next day after lunch. I’m sure we invited him to join too…. or maybe not!

If you love apple desserts, you will have to check out the recipe for applesauce cake from last year. It is a layered beauty that is wrapped in caramel frosting.

Or if you love the idea of this cake, but don’t have fresh apples on hand, applesauce bars would be a great alternative. They are quick and easy to make and they taste amazing!

If you are a frosting fanatic like me, check out my Frosting 101. It goes through the different types of frosting and links to all sorts of delicious recipes!

Thanks for sharing!